Law and the Modern Mind: By Jerome Frank. (New York: Brentano's, 1930. Pp. 362. Price 21 s.)

The idea that law is fixed and unchangeable, rather than fluid and

changing, is a 'basic myth' due to the law's position in the community as a father-substitute. This is the theme developed here by Mr. Frank. He discusses interesting questions such as legal verbiage, the judging process, fictions, and the jury, but although modern psychological ideas, chiefly derived from the works of Piaget on children, are made much use of, the book is chiefly written from the point of view of academical jurisprudence, and for this reason fails to deal adequately with the psychological aspect of its material. Mr. Frank is chiefly concerned to develop a mature realistic attitude which regards the law as being in a state of continual flux and is the antithesis of the attitude which clings to the myth referred to above. With this end in view he quotes and criticizes a large number of eminent jurists whose writings have borne on the subject; to such an extent, in fact, that his work threatens to become overloaded with extracts from other authors and his comments thereon. There are, however, undoubtedly some exceedingly fruitful ideas in the book which, if developed from the psychological point of view, might be expected to yield much that is of interest.